The Attic (a name which commemorates our first physical location) is, first and foremost, a site for the research students of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester: a virtual community which aims to include all students, be they campus-based and full-time, or distance-learning and overseas. But we welcome contributions from students of museum studies - and allied subject areas - from outside the School and from around the world. Here you will find a lot of serious stuff, like exhibition and research seminar reviews, conference alerts and calls for papers, but there's also some 'fluff'; the things that inspire, distract and keep us going. After all, while we may be dead serious academic types, we're human too.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Thomas Bernhard's "Old Masters" drawn by Nicolas Mahler

A Graphic Novel for Museum Freaks

Reger, a
philosopher of music, spends every second day in the Museum of Fine Arts in
Vienna. There he sits, like a statue himself, in the Bordone hall and stares
for hours at a Tintoretto. You would assume that he loves art and especially
this painter, but far from it! He hates every single artwork. To read his
scornful remarks about art in general makes this graphic novel a reading
pleasure because it is refreshing how he breaks the taboo of not being allowed
to criticise the „Old Masters“. But behind Reger’s condemnation his love for
art shines through and after he has savaged not only the fine arts but also
literature he finally reveals the true reason for spending so many hours on
this certain bench in front of the Tintoretto...

This bench
and all the other typical items of a museum – frames, cordons, stairs and floor
mosaics – are taken seriously in the drawings of Nicolas Mahler as if they were
actors in a play. He uses them elaborately to demonstrate the insights and art
criticism of the protagonist. And it really makes fun to look at his pictures
of the famous paintings especially because he concentrates on the most
important features. Therefore his Tintoretto looks indeed quite poor and his
Madonna – which is critised by Reger for being fragmentary – looks, well,
fragmentary.

(There is nothing you could admire, Reger said yesterday. Nothing/at/all.)

Bernhard’s novel
which was the basis for the graphic novel is also available in English, published
by Penguin. But watch out! If you like it and want to visit on your next trip
to Vienna the famous bench in the Bordone hall – this hall never existed.

***STOP PRESS***

PhD Conferences

We have a new PhD conference upcoming this year November 5-6th 2013. It is called Museum Metamorphosis and is all about the adaptable and changing museums of today. We are sponsored by AHRC and in partnership with Leicester Museums. The official website and details can be found here.

Last year's PhD student conference was held March 27-28 2012, and was titled Museum Utopias; it was supported by the University of Leicester and Hanwell. It was an intreguing two days of utopic ideals and realities in museums today. Details are available on the official website. Read the blog for a session-by-session review of the conference.

The 2011 conference was held in Leicester March 28-30, and was called Curiouser & Curiouser; supported financially by the University of Leicester, it was an exciting three days of the weird and wonderful in heritage studies. Read the blog to find out more. We also held a highly successful PhD student symposium in December 2009. Read the blog.